William Lamie talks about ThreadX past, present, and future

October 19, 2018 //
By William Wong

Real-time operating systems (RTOS) have been the backbone of embedded systems and Express Logic’s ThreadX has been an RTOS that has flourished over time. It is compact and modular like most RTOS systems. I recently talked with Express Logic CEO William Lamie, who is also the architect of ThreadX, to hear about what the RTOS looks like today.

How has ThreadX changed over time in terms of functions and code size?

William Lamie, co-founder and CEO of Express Logic,
and architect of the ThreadX RTOS.

Surprisingly, ThreadX today is very similar to the original product we introduced in 1997. Applications written for the original ThreadX build are able to run on the latest version without any modification. There has been and continues to be incremental refinement, of course, so ThreadX today is smaller and faster than the original.

Today’s ThreadX also has more functionality than the original, including priority inheritance, our unique event-chaining technology, as well as execution profiling and built-in performance metrics. ThreadX today is also safety-certified to SIL 4, ASIL D, Class C Medical, and much more. This level of safety certification requires 100% statement and 100% branch (MC/DC) test coverage, making today’s ThreadX one of the most highly tested RTOSs on the market.

How has the ThreadX microkernel architecture affected its size, functionality and acceptance compared to its predecessors?

We actually introduced a new term—picokernel—with the introduction of ThreadX in 1997. The idea behind picokernel is that it’s a small, non-layered design. This means that ThreadX has a very small function call depth and is therefore fast and uses less stack memory. Our picokernel design yields a minimal footprint on the order of 2 kB on a Cortex-M class part.

Automatic scaling is also part of the picokernel design. This means that only what’s used of ThreadX by the application is brought into the final image by the linker. The application developer doesn’t need to go through extensive compile-time configuration options—it just happens automatically via the picokernel design. ThreadX has enjoyed a size and performance advantage since its introduction in 1997 and continues to do so today. This is largely why ThreadX dominates the high-volume and SoC embedded markets.

This site uses cookies to enhance your visitor experience. By continuing your visit to this site, you accept the use of cookies to offer services and offers tailored to your interests (see our Privacy & Data Protection Policy).

Vous êtes certain ?

This site use Cookies

Essential cookies

These cookies are required to navigate on our Site. They allow us to analyse our traffic. If you
disable cookies, you can no longer browse the site. You can of course change the setting

Advertising cookies

Analytical Cookies

These cookies are used to gather information about your use of the Site to improve your access to
the site and increase its usability.

Third party cookies

These cookies allow you to share your favourite content of the Site with other people via social
networks. Some sharing buttons are integrated via third-party applications that can issue this type of
cookies. This is particularly the case of the buttons "Facebook", "Twitter", "Linkedin". Be careful, if
you disable it, you will not be able to share the content anymore. We invite you to consult the
privacy policy of these social networks.

Pay attention, some cookies cannot be removed

To cancel some cookies, please follow the procedures on the following links